Monday, December 26, 2011

Well, after wrapping up a week of work, we were finally able to move the Christmas tree out to the living room onto a new platform I made for the steering wheel. We were able to move the tree because now we would be home all of the time to keep an eye on Rosie so she wouldn't destroy it while we are gone to work.

Thursday night after work, we joined some friends for dinner at Red Robin and then went cruising through a neighborhood in Roseville where almost everyone decorates their home with Christmas lights. One home in particular, had a reprisal of the Grisswold family Christmas and Cousin Eddie in the drive way!

Though Friday meant that Eric had to work half the day, we still had time to go to Brandee's shop and both get a hair cut Friday afternoon. The rest of the weekend, we got to enjoy a lot of quality family time together. Saturday, we had dinner at Sandy and Bill's for Christmas eve. We all got to enjoy a White Elephant gift exchange that evening, that was a lot of fun. Once we got a little gift stealing started, the event became quite lively.

On Sunday, Christmas day, it was our turn to host a little bit of Christmas cheer. We prepared a turkey, cooked in our Convection oven, and all of the trimmings. Katie and Russ came over earlier in the day to open gifts and then Sandy and Bill joined us for dinner later in the day. Carol did a masterful job with the Turkey as always. We are always so pleasantly surprised as to how well we are able to prepare a complete meal in our humble little abode!

Monday, December 19, 2011

Well, as is to be expected, December is shaping up to be a busy month for our family. But, we know that the holiday season is busy for all us. As we started December, Rosie was completing her dog obedience class at Petsmart. Rosie was a wonderful student during the 6 weeks, but she still had a lot of moments where she was shy, but she does really well at what she learns. The big thing, for almost every dog, is the follow through of the owner. And though we are trying to be better about getting her out, I'm not doing as good as I should at keeping her practice up.

We took Rosie and Lily to the Rancho Cordova Winter Woof fest this last weekend. Both dogs were great. The Winter Woof fest was a modest little event with about 8 vendors as well as Santa Paws. We hope they do it again next year, 'cause we think it is a great little event!

Speaking of Rosie, we aren't quite sure how to leave Rosie alone at home during the day with the Christmas tree. We normally have the tree on the dashboard, and since Rosie is a 'Dash Dog', we know she would have the tree all over the place when we came home from work. So, for the time being, we have the tree set up on the dresser in the bedroom. When we get home from work on Thursday, we will move the tree out to the living room and see if we can keep Rosie from knocking it over.

We've decorated as best we could around our rig with the lights that we had. We're going to see if we can score some more lights when 'clearance' time comes up at Target later this month. As you can see, some of the homes in our part of Rancho Cordova go all out to decorate their neighborhoods. We sure love our new home here in Rancho Cordova.

We were also lucky this holiday season to hook up with Carol's former boss Jerry Reed and his wife Mary for a Christmas dinner. It is always nice to see them and get caught up on what is going on with their family.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Well, it has been a while since I updated the blog. We've been very busy and most weekend mornings, when I normally update the blog, I've been busy working on my Windows Phone application that will be intended for RVers, but more on that at a later date.

Our Thanksgiving weekend is rapidly coming to a close, but it has been a wonderful one. We had an opportunity to get together with a large number of our family members.

On Wednesday night, Mike and Karen arrived to the Elks lodge in Rancho Cordova to set up their RV for the weekend. They were at Marq's earlier in the week to celebrate marks 37th Birthday, the thought of that really makes me feel old! :-) After Carol and I got home from work, we had Mike and Karen over for dinner at our place where we enjoyed some tasty Skinny Tortilla soup that Carol makes, YUM!

On Thursday afternoon, we all headed over to Brandee and Kevins for Thanksgiving dinner. They, with the help of their daughter Danielle, Sandy and Bill put on a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Carols Brother Calvin and his wife Joyce were able to join us as well which is always great. One of the fun events of the evening, was Kevins desire to change out the toilet in the middle of the preparations for dinner. Kevin enlisted the help of his brother Paul to undertake this task. They had it changed out in no time! It was great to have Paul home for the holiday season. Paul is returning to Afghanistan to wrap up his deployment with the troops in the next couple months. The food and company of this evening was absolutely wonderful!

On Friday, Mike, Karen, Carol and Eric tripped around Sacramento. We took the dogs to the dog park and we had lunch at a local Brew pub and then had dinner at Karen and Mikes place.

Saturday, Carol and I hooked up with Billy, Loretta to see them and their son Brandon at their house in Pioneer. It was so wonderful to see them this holiday season.

We considered going out on Black Friday and doing some Christmas shopping with the throngs, but our intestinal fortitude as well as our check book, being that we only get paid once a month now, are lacking. So, we opted to sleep in.

Sunday, we went to the tree lighting ceremony for Rancho Cordova where we think almost the entire populous of Rancho Cordova could be found. There were a lot of people there for this fun community event that had vendors and activities for everyone.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Carol and I had the opportunity to attend the Veterans day celebrations today at the Veterans Administration Hospital just down the block from our home. We consider ourselves so lucky to have been able to attend and remember those who have served our country. For some time now, when ever we run into a veteran or active duty military, we have been sure to thank them for their service to our country. If you are a veteran or active duty military, we thank you too. If you know or meet a veteran or active duty service member, be sure to thank them too!

We are entering into the season of Fall. This is a wonderful time of year when all of the colors come out. Some of the trees here at the RV park are changing colors. Also, when we ride the light rail train to work, we are seeing a large majority of the trees changing colors as well. This is a beautiful time of year. We are finding that living in our new digs is working out well for us. At our new park, we pay for our space and utilities separately. We find that even in the summer or winter, regardless of whether we are running the Air conditioner or the Heat pumps, it is still cheaper to live here than it was in Plymouth. Plus, living where we are now, is just more convenient.

As I indicated, we haven't been out recently in the MOHO, but hopefully after the holidays, we will be able to head off to new adventures.

I'm sorry it has been so long since we have posted to the blog. We both are doing well and are both really busy with our jobs. We are still getting use to getting paid only once a month. So, we have fun on the front end of the month and start to live like hermits, shortly there after! But hey, it allows me to get chores done around the house!

Carol still loves her job at Cal-Fire and I am really enjoying my job working for the Department of Social Services. Starting on the 14th of November, I will be taking some Microsoft training not far from my office in Sacramento.

We haven't been able to get out in the RV lately. We've had a lot of medical expenses for the Dogs as well as vehicle maintenance that has been depleting from our 'Fun' fund. Nothing critical, just routine stuff.

Everyone in the family reports in as doing well. Today, Carol and I will be heading out to some Veterans days celebrations. Tomorrow, we are having some friends from Carols work coming and joining us for dinner.

In my down time, I've been working on an Phone App for RVers that will run on the Windows Phone platform. I've had my new Windows Phone for over a month now and I just love it. Programming for it though is a little different than for a PC, but I'm getting it figured out!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Well, the time has finally come. Carol has reached the ripe old age of 50. It is a point in time in many of our lives that we don't take with glee, just 'cause we may hate getting old', but Carol takes it in such stride. As she says "it beats the alternative!". Long prior to the family reunion even, Carol said she didn't want a big tadoo about her birthday. Though I have tried to honor that request, her ever loving husband must admit, many times I have been a willing participant.

Her first celebration was at the family reunion where we all got together to celebrate her life with cake and good wishes. I woke up bright and early the morning of the potluck on that weekend to run to Safeway to pick up the cake. Though it wasn't my idea, for the family reunion celebration, I was well into the thick of it with Carol's sister Sandy.

I wasn't going to do much in the way of a Birthday dinner for Carol this weekend either, 'cause she had asked me not too. I was going to have us go out to dinner with Katie and Russ and just have a nice evening. But it was Carol who decided she wanted it expanded a little bit. So, I obliged with dinner for 16 of her friends and family. We'll all be having dinner tonight at Cafeteria 15L in Sacramento, one of our favorite eateries in this fair city.

But even as Carol was sleeping on this morning of this day, the 50th celebration of the year of her birth, the wheels of celebration are turning. You see, this time it was my sisters turn to pull out all of the stops for Carol. She ordered up a flock of Flamingos for Carol to be deposited on our front yard. Little does Carol know what awaits her when she starts moving and grooving today.

Once again, I am a willing participant as it is my job to keep the dogs quiet while the yard is decorated. These pictures are of the end result.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Scott and Cheryl Wright for the last few years have always attended the Folsom Bark and Splash which is held at the Folsom Pool when it closes down for the season. You see, the reasoning is, they have to empty all of the water out of the pool anyway, so why not allow the dogs to run free in the water for a little while before hand.

At any rate, Scott and Cheryl have been telling us about this every year, and we finally made a point of attending it. It's a great event with a lot of vendors that attend and it is a great event for dogs of all shapes and sizes to get their feet, or entire body wet. We brought Rosie and Lilly to see if they would be interested in partaking in a little splash and bark fun.

Though many dogs got in the pool and splashed about, chasing balls and Frisbees, some of them took the opportunity, like many of their two legged counterparts, to visit the booths to see what was for the taking!

Our two dogs however didn't get that much enjoyment out of the event. Lilly isn't much of a water dog as she had a bad experience years and years ago where we almost lost her. And, Rosie doesn't do well in large crowds of people or with barking dogs. We think it is a cool event and may attend in the future, but we'll have to wait and see if we bring any of our dogs in the future.

If you get a chance in your local community, check out your local pool and see if they have such an event. Its a lot of fun, and has the potential to be a great fund raiser as well.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

On the first weekend of October, we all got together for the 5th annual Waite Family reunion. This is the fifth family reunion, the fourth held at the Tower Park KOA just west of Lodi California. Carol's sister Sandy started these reunions five years ago, and we have been very fortunate that the event has tended to attract more family members every year.

Carols' dad Calvin had a brother Rex who lives in Michigan. Rex has a number of kids and grand kids who live in Michigan which is the state that Calvin Sr was raised in. This year, we were hoping that there would be some family members from Michigan attend our family reunion, but unfortunately no one was able to make it. None the less, we had a wonderful event as always.

On Friday night, there were about 25 of us that got together for a Taco feed. Though Friday night is just when everyone arrives at the camp ground, we still have a wonderful gathering together. The KOA that we stay at consists primarily of RV sights, but it also has a large number of Camping Cabins. So, it is well set up for a reunion where family can attend in an RV, Tent, or stay in one of the cabins.

On Saturday, we had a number of games which included a sack race, water balloon toss, sponge relay and Tug of war followed by a horse shoe tournament. Though it always seems to be a challenge to get the family all together to get the games starting, once we are rolling, everyone has a wonderful time.

After the Horse shoe tournament is done, we get together for a giant pot luck. This year, because Carol is turning 50, it was decided that celebrating Carols birthday was something important to do. So, before Carol woke up on Saturday morning, I ran off to the local Safeway store to pick up her birthday Cake. Sandy got all of the decorations, so it turned out to be a wonderful evening with the entire family.

On Sunday, we said our good byes to everyone and look forward to next years gathering!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

This weekend we remember those who lost their lives as a result of the terrorists attacks on September 11th 2001. The immediate terror of the events on that day, had a huge impact on our nation. But, then there is the lingering damage that is done in the form of injured or killed members of our US armed forces as a result of the military action taken in response to the terrorists attacks. We as a nation should weep for there sacrifices, but we should always remember their sacrifices and support them and their families who survived them. And like so many others in our country, both of us remember what happened on that date, and support our troops and the actions our government has had to take as a result of the events on that day, and other attacks on our country.

On September 11th, we attended the California Capital Airshow that was held at Mather Field which is just a mile from our home. The air show was a wonderful event where we and thousands of others celebrated our country as we watched many exceptional aerobatic performers and viewed a lot of great air craft displays.

One of the demonstations was a re-creation of the attack on Perl Harbor executed by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941. This demonstration was very realistic and made the hair on our harms stand on end.

The wonderful climax to the air show was the fly over by a US Coast Guard C-130 that deployed over $10,000 worth of flowers in order to remember those that perished as in the attacks of 9/11/2001.

As Carol and I have been doing for a while now, we had the chance to remember and thank those who have served in our US armed forces.

Monday, September 5, 2011

First off, the last four blog entries were posted at the same time as this one because I had a hard time getting the pictures to upload at the RV park. So, be sure to check out all of the last five blog entries.

As they say, all good things must come to an end. Today, we left the Betabel RV Resort and headed home. Carol has been wanting to get some time behind the wheel driving the motorhome. The sparsely populated area of San Juan Bautista was the perfect place to do this. Carol had a chance to warm up on the frontage road between the RV Park and US 101. She then drove, collectively, about 70 miles of the 130 mile trip home.

With a little tutelage, she got her feeling for being behind the wheel really quickly. The dogs were just as comfortable with Carol behind the wheel as they are with me.

We had such a wonderful four day weekend for our 12th anniversary. We are so in love and so enjoy getting out in the RV together.

We celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary in the city of Monterey. Originally, we were hoping that we would be able to do some Geocaching in the Monterey area, as it always takes us to places we normally wouldn't visit. Unfortunately, because of the fact that Dinner required a more dressy attire and that we were over 30 miles from Monterey, we opted to just get dressed up and walk through Cannery row until dinner time. This was a wise decision, cause we were in bumper to bumper traffic almost the entire way from San Juan Bautista to Monterey.

Once we got to Monterey, we spent the majority of the day walking through Cannery Row. When we first arrived, we had a delicious lunch at the Cannery Row Brewing company. This place was hopping on this holiday weekend, but a table for two opened up fairly early in our wait for seating , so we got right in! After lunch, we walked around in some of the stores in cannery row. The Monterey Bay Aquarium had a long line of folks waiting to get in, so it is a good thing we had seen that attraction in the past. After walking around for a while, we stopped and got some refreshments and sat in a patio area watching the Kayak's go by in the bay. It is was nice and relaxing!

Our dinner reservations at a restaurant called the 'Chart House' were for 7:00 PM, however we were done with the crowds at around 5:15 PM, so we went in to see if they could seat us early. They were busy, but able to get us seated at 6:30 which was fine. We just relaxed in the bar until they were able to seat us. We told the Matre de, that we wanted to be seated in a window seat, and wow, what a nice table. It had a great view of the bay. Along with that, went fantastic service and food. If we are ever out in the Monterey area again, we will definitely dine here again!

Tomorrow, we head for home, but this has been a wonderful Anniversary celebration!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Our second full day here in the Monterey/San Juan Bautista area was another full one, but enjoyable none the less. We started out Geocaching, in San Juan Bautista. Geocaching is an activity that my Eric's Sister and Brother-in-law introduced us too over 5 years ago. We had 5 geocaches to find in the San Juan Bautista area, but two of them were over two miles from the closest place to park the car, so we decided against those, as we just couldn't spare the time. One of the caches, was located at the old, yet still operational Mission San Juan Bautista! We took a couple hours exploring this mission, gardens and immersing our selves in it's history. We found there were some Civil War Re-enactments going on in the area as well which were very interesting. If you ever find your selves in this area, you must check out this mission.

After having lunch we did some antique shopping looking for Pie birds and ceramic Boxers. We found a Boxer so we snagged that up for Carol's collection and we also found Carol a new purse, but after two exhaustive days of searching, not one Pie bird to be found. What is up with that. We really enjoyed old town San Juan Bautista. May more open store fronts than in Gilroy, probably because most of the buildings on main street were wood framed and faced, instead of un-reinforced masonry.

After we finished up in San Juan Bautista, we thought we would take a run out to Pinnacles National Monument. The bummer was that we didn't get there until after the ranger station had closed. So, though we didn't get to see the interpretive exhibits, we did get to see the Pinnacles. This is the sort of place geared more for the avid hiker and rock climber than for those that like to drive up and check something out. If you like to hike, allow yourself two full days to check this area out, if you like to 'drive up and see what you can see', you'll be out of places to explore within an hour. Allow yourself at least two hours though if you are going to include the visitors centers. It was much warmer up here at Pinnacles than in the rest of the San Juan Bautista area. Pinnacles is much like Castle Crags state park, however we find Castle Crags more enjoyable.

If you are in the area however, we highly suggest you stop by for a visit.

Sunday, we are off to Monterey to do some more Geocaching and to enjoy our anniversary dinner with a spectacular View from 'The Charthouse'.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Well, we have set out on our four day weekend trip to San Juan Bautista to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary! San Juan Bautista is just a few miles east of Monterey. When we set out for Batebel RV Resort on Thursday afternoon after work, we weren’t sure if we were going to make it all the way to San Juan Bautista Thursday night, but we did.

The RV park here is wonderful. All of the sites are very roomy and there are nice hedges separating each site. There are a number of Full Time RVers that live here, but everyone keeps their sites very clean. There are a couple of grassy areas to take the dogs so they can get up a run and blow off some steam. Speaking of dogs, our three traveling companions were excellent as always on the road trip down here. We arrived at the park about 10:30 Thursday evening.

On Friday, we checked in and found out that we needed to move to a different site, which was fine. The new one was even larger than the first one we were in. After we got camp all set up, we headed up to the town of Gilroy to check out this town. Old town Gilroy is so cool to look at, but unfortunately, a lot of the buildings have false facades that are made of granite and other un-reinforced Masonry, so they cannot be occupied. As a result, a lot of downtown is abandoned. Because of the down economy, no one has any money to put in to restoring these buildings to their previous grandeur.

During our tour of Old Town Gilroy, we had lunch at the Garlic City Café. If you are ever in Gilroy, you must check out this place! The location is small but the food selection is wide ranging. The quality is excellent and the prices are reasonable.

After a fair amount of walking through Antique stores, we stopped by Starbucks and then reposed to a local park for a little break to take a load off our feet. As we were headed out of town, we stopped by the Gilroy transit center which is the old Rail station for the town of Gilroy. It is a wonderful place to visit, among the many other attractions to this wonderful city.

We got back to camp before sun-down and we took the dogs for a run on the lawn one more time before our day was done. We have many options on things we can do the next two days of our weekend, so you will just have to tune in to see what we are up to!

For the most part weather wise, August 2011 was a mild year, but for us personally, it has been very busy. On the 20th of August, I told Carol to go outside, sit on the patio with her coffee and paper and enjoy a little warm sunshine. My charge in life at that particular time was to clean the carpets of the motorhome. We've had the rig almost a month now and that cleaning is well over due. We've had many homes during our years of marriage and this was by far the easiest to clean. I was done in less than an hour.

On Sunday the 21st, we had all of the family in Amador county over for a Bar-b-cue. It was a wonderful gathering with Sandy and Bill Ealy, Calvin and Joyce Waite, Brandee and Kevin McCann, and Katie and Russ. The extra bonus is that we got to celebrate Russ's birthday. We so love having him as part of our family! It was such a nice gathering and the weather continues to cooperate. Everyone brought a dish, and good food was had by all. Once again, just like during the holidays, we proved that you don't need a big place to entertain, you just need a little planning!

On the Saturday of the following weekend, we had a visit from Jerry and Mary read for a long awaited Bar-b-cue. It's been over a year since we had gotten together with them, so it was nice to sit down and visit with them and get caught up. Jerry and Mary brought their new addition to their family Zoey along to meet our heard.

On that Sunday, Carol went off to have a day with her good friend Cheryl for a girlies day out. While the girls were out playing, I kept myself busy while I washed the motorhome, got caught up on the Books for the TheRVITGuy business and did about 4, though they be small loads of laundry. I also treated the rubber seals on the Motorhome in preparation for winter, cleaned the windows, changed the linens and vacuumed. With a trip to the dog park thrown in for good measure, it was a busy day. I found I was sitting down to relax just before Carol got home around 9:00 PM. Where does the day go sometimes? :-)

Well, that is all for now, our next post will be about the start of our trip for our 12th wedding anniversary, to the San Juan Bautista area.

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About Me

The two of us have been living full time in our RV since January of 2009. Our blog starts however with our trip to the Pacific North West which we charged out on in September of 2007, which was our dry run to living full time in the rv. We are currently joined by our two dogs Charlie and Rosie; but over time we have been joined by Lily, Roxy, and cats Spot and Angel.